My Great Uncle, William Hill Macvean

I became aware of this story at the end of December last year, 2023 when I received a random comment on a post I had published back in 2021.

Gday John, I am not sure you will receive this. In short I have a photo of a gentleman in uniform who may be your ancestor. Please email or text to let me know you have received this. I am not on any media networks. Just phone and email. Regards, Ted Cameron.

I of course was intrigued and reached out to Ted via email. Just 40mins later I received this email from him.

Good evening John, glad I have successfully made contact. I have had trouble reading the Surname of signature and used a process of elimination. I really hope this is William Hill Macvean, and your ancestor.

Attached to the email was this phenomenal piece of our family history gold.

I emailed Ted straight back.

Ted and I ended up speaking on the phone for about an hour as he wanted to share what the story was that he knew behind William’s photo. I will share that in a moment.

He confirmed that he had the actual photo and that as far as he was concerned it was now mine and he would post it to me within the next couple of days. It is great to know there are still generous people out there like Ted.

William’s photo arrived not even a week later and even though I never knew William it did feel like a homecoming of sorts. To have this piece of my family history that has survived the last 110 years, in my hands, was really amazing.

Ted explained in his note that there was no particular link with the Christmas card he had enclosed with the photo, it was just one of a large collection that his Mum & Dad had and that he admired it and thought it would be nice to have with William’s photo.

Now to the story of how William’s photo ended up with Ted. (I should say first, that Ted did give me his permission to discuss him and his family in this post.)

Ted confirmed that he wasn’t a relation but went on to explain that he had been aware of William’s photo for a very long time and suspected that it had been in his family since the war.

It was part of his grandparent’s collection of photos and whenever it made the light of day when the photos were brought out, it was always described as being a photo of one of his grandmother’s old boyfriends.

Ted said that he had only been seriously trying to find who William might belong to in the last couple of years. He had wanted the photo to be reunited with family, but the handwritten last name on the photo had proved difficult to decipher.

As he mentioned in his email above, through a matter of elimination, he finally hit the correct combination which then led him to this blog.

In my opinion, I think Ted did bloody awesome to work it out. If you weren’t aware of the name Macvean then that is one hell of a link to make.

So, to Ted’s grandmother. Her name was Clara Adeline Robinson born in 1894. She and her older sister, Jane Rosabell Robinson, born in 1884, ran a cafe together in Melbourne. Ted said that Jane was the “boss”. His dad told him once that he recalled “Aunty Rose” as being “hard”. Ted surmised that she was business-minded and a no-nonsense type of person.

Unfortunately, Ted had no photos of Clara or Jane that he could share with me. He was hopeful that he might find some in the family photo collection so that we might be able to add them to this story with William.

Ted went on to explain, that the story with William’s photo that the family knew, was that William used to visit the cafe and presumably over time he became sweet on Clara. Then, just before he shipped out to fight in the war he left the photo with her at the cafe and asked her not to forget him. He said that he would return once the war was over.

Clara never heard from or saw him ever again.

Ted discovered when searching Trove for information on his grandmother and grandaunt that the cafe was actually situated at 170 Exhibition Street, Melbourne.

I went searching on Trove with the combination of Clara and Jane’s names, with cafe and Exhibition Street but nothing came up. I trimmed the search terms down to just the address and got a couple of hits.

Nothing specific about the cafe, unfortunately, just a room for rent and an advert for a girl for housework. Then this next advert appeared.

Yay, getting closer, at least this confirms that there was a cafe at the address. Next, I thought of looking to see if there might be any historic photos of the area that might show the cafe.

Ted shared that as far as he knew no one in the family had a photo of the cafe to date. To make that search a little easier some landmarks would help. I turned to that amazing resource, the “Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works” maps on the State Library Victoria site and the corner of Exhibition and Bourke Streets came up first hit.

These maps are so useful when searching for specific sites because they often have the names of buildings or landmarks written on them.

We were in luck, we had some landmarks. First off we have No. 170 Exhibition Street, clearly marked there, the site of Clara and Jane’s Cafe. We also have the “London Bank” sitting on the corner block of Exhibition and Bourke streets, this might give us a chance to find a photo of the bank which then might show the cafe.

We also have a named hotel right next door to No. 170 which increases our chances of a photo and there is also a “Mornane Place” between it and the bank so this should make it easier to identify on any photos. Hopefully.

I started looking again.

The first find, a description of Mornane Place.

No mention of No. 170 Exhibition but still good to know that there were similar businesses as Clara and Rose in the area.

I did find a notice from 1847 stating that a new liquor license being issued to Patrick Mornane had to be postponed as the “house” was not finished.

I really like it when you find these small links. I’m assuming that Mornane Place is probably named for Patrick and what about that notice? It is from 1847, damn that is a long time ago.

I jumped back on the library site and we got a hit for an image. The “London Bank” building, photographed in 1949, which was then known as the “English Scottish & Australian Bank“.

Oh, I got excited, that writing on the building behind the bank certainly looks like “Clare Castle Hotel” to me and I think that might be 1847 on the very top. If these details are correct that would make the next building on the left the site of the cafe, No. 170 Exhibition St.

That is it, the building pictured behind the tree is the site of Clara and Jane’s cafe. You will note the hotel is three windows across at the top and then below that is the start of No. 170 which has the slight decorative buttresses on the very top.

The next photo that appeared in the search was this one below, taken between 1870 and 1875. It is 40 years before Clara and Jane’s time but it still gives us a look at the site of their future cafe.

Thanks to the library’s amazing digitisation team, this photo has phenomenal detail. Don’t worry; it is the correct corner that we are looking at. At this earlier time, Exhibition Street was known as Stephen Street.

The next thing you will notice is that the bank’s original entrance sat on an angle to the street, or chamfered as it is known, whereas in 1949 (Figure 10) it has clearly been built out to a right-angle corner and the entrance centred on Bourke Street.

When we zoom in we can see that the “Clare Castle Hotel” is a simple two-storied building with the entrance on the front, unlike in 1949 when the building was obviously extended and the entrance chamfered. And there right next to the hotel, is No. 170 Exhibition Street.

The buttresses are visible and the two window openings, are all still clearly seen in the later 1949 photo. (Figure 10)

I kept searching hoping that something would come up closer to Clara and Jane’s time and it took forever but finally, a candidate appeared.

This image was taken in 1929 and would you believe it, that bloody tree again. This time with all the damn leaves out and blocking our view. Still, when we zoom in, take a look at what appears.

The two window profiles match the earlier photo (Close-Up Section of Figure 11) and the three window openings of the hotel are visible in all three images. You can also see that the small awning over the door closest to No. 170 is still there in 1949 (Figure 10)

In the absence of any better photographic record I’m going to call it, this is the site of Clara and Jane’s cafe at No. 170 Exhibition Street. I’m disappointed that we couldn’t find a photo that centred on the actual cafe but at least this gives us a slight window into where William visited and left his photo and where Jane was living and presumably Clara too.

I can be certain Jane was living there because I found a couple of Police Gazette listings for her on Ancestry.com.au that confirm the address.

I wondered if Pauline, the offender, might have been related but I couldn’t find a link in the information for Jane on Ancestry.

I found this next advert in Trove when searching for information on the cafe and wondered if Jane and Clara had taken on a new revenue stream.

The next Police Gazette entry confirmed the details of the ad.

I know these are details of an assault from over 100 years ago but they are still terrible to read that they happened to Jane.

These Police reports are very disturbing. Was Jane targeted, was it just bad luck or was this the norm for the time? Perhaps women were seen as easy targets, especially unmarried women who were self-employed. Knowing of the robberies and assaults against Jane, it is now understandable how Ted’s dad had the impression of her as being hard, she had to be.

Now I have saved this next find till last as it just blew me away when I stumbled onto it. It really solidifies the details of the story of William’s photo that had been passed down in Ted’s family.

Unfortunately, it is another Police report that details another burglary that Jane had to endure.

I mean, come on! What are the odds of finding a mention like that? I know it could be a coincidence but that would be pretty huge, in my opinion. Of course, I’m referring to the initials on the ring, they just happen to match William’s. William Hill Macvean. Wow! I’m choosing to believe it was his.

This means that there was definitely a connection there more than just leaving a photo and a hope to be remembered. The big question for me now is, why did Jane have the ring and not Clara?

This was 1923 and Clara had been married for three years to Angus Cameron, Ted’s grandfather. I could imagine, that Clara probably wouldn’t have wanted the initialled ring of a former boyfriend in her jewellery box and this might be why it was in Jane’s possession.

Perhaps Clara and Jane thought that William had been killed in the war and the thought of just disposing of it didn’t seem like the right thing to do. (I wonder what happened to the ring and if it is still around today?)

The reality was that William had survived the war, just (he was badly wounded on two occasions) and had been married for almost five years by 1923. He married an English girl, Edith Hill in June of 1918 while he was on active service.

Edith accompanied William on his return to Australia with their infant daughter, Jessie Macvean. They settled in the Riverina area of New South Wales and went on to have another three children. William, who died in 1956 and Edith, in 1982 are buried together in the North Albury Cemetery.

The rest of Clara and Jane’s stories are not mine to tell but I feel very honoured to have been able to share the little bit that I was able to discover above.

To finish off, here below is a photo of the site today. This is where this small chapter in the story of my and Ted’s families played out. The bank and “Mornane Place” are still there but the cafe and the “Clare Castle Hotel” are, unfortunately, long gone.